


Edge Of The World

by Jerge



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Cyberpunk, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-15
Updated: 2017-08-15
Packaged: 2018-12-15 19:36:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,835
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11812794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jerge/pseuds/Jerge
Summary: Sloane, more cyborg than half elf, has been hacked and compromised by an unknown force. Detective Hurley, girlfriend of Sloane, tries to find a way to help her.





	Edge Of The World

Her mindscape was a murky blue with sharp, hot fragments of memories and thoughts and feelings penetrating through the darkness. It was all jumbled, entirely out of order, and no matter how hard she tried to hold onto the pieces, to reassemble them, she could only feel the scalding heat burn through her hands.

She knew exactly three things: her name was Sloane, she had a girlfriend named Hurley who was hot as hell, and a hacker had broken through her barriers and infiltrated her mind.

The mindscape was getting murkier as her memories were being pulled from her head, one by one. Like a shattered mirror under the surface of a pond, the pieces shimmered, the light refracting through the haze.

What the hacker wanted, she didn’t know. They hadn’t attempted contact with her, just the shattering and the dissection of her memories; they were searching for something.

She sat down on the surface of her mindscape and looked in, watching as pieces were taken by a force she couldn’t determine.

\-----

Hurley paced the room, watching the man with a keen eye. She didn’t trust him, not one bit, but he was Sloane’s tech. He was Sloane’s supplier. He knew more about Sloane’s tech than Hurley would ever understand.

Garfield scratched his cheek. He wheeled his chair back, looking from side to side at the opened back of Sloane’s head, before he wheeled back in.

Sloane was a cyborg, her only organic components left being her brain, which was sealed away in a case made strong enough to withstand an explosion or a bullet.

Hurley paced.

Sloane was more machine than half-elf now. Her senses enhanced. Her strength intensified. She was an unbeatable force in the cyber city known as Goldcliff. A petty thief but a notorious street racer.

And she was the love of her life.

She stopped in her tracks as Garfield pulled back away, tugging off his gloves and tossing them into the garbage by the door of their little apartment.

“Find anything?”

He looked at her with grim eyes, narrowed and sunken in. With a shake of his head, he closed the back of Sloane’s head, clicking the pieces back into place. He turned back to her.

“You do understand that Sloane is my best customer,”

Hurley’s gaze was unwavering.

“If I had a way of determining how she had been hacked like this, I would do what I could in order to get her help. I checked for any bugs, any outside equipment that could have been the root cause, the entry point for this virus, but everything is my equipment, exactly as I had installed it ages ago.” He started to pack.

“So this is all that you can do…”

His eyes flashed over to her, pupils thin slits, his hands carefully putting away his tools into their designated spots in his large, silver suitcase.

“Not exactly,” he prompted once he was finished.

Narrowed eyes continued to pin down on him from Hurley’s end. Her hands trembled slightly, no amount of ki or concentration or meditation could get her to stop that; not ever since Sloane had gone prone.

“I have one other resource. But he’s an outside man. A little eccentric, if you don’t mind that sort of thing,” he flashed a grin, small, sharp teeth glowing against the low light.

“What’s his name?” Her eyes narrowed in on his.

“Lucas Miller,”

\-----

A meek man appeared on the screen by the door, face illuminated by blue screens, glasses reflecting said light in a way that hid his eyes from her.

“Lucas Miller?” she asked, looking up at the screen.

“T-That’s me… what do you want?”

Hurley exhaled, watching her breath materialize before her in the cold air.

The desert city got cold at night.

“I need your help,”

\------

Sloane reached her hands down into the pool, grasping at the shard of memory that was her and Hurley meeting. It burned to the touch but she desperately pulled at it, trying to lift it from the ever sinking murk that was her mind now.

It burned but she kept holding, so long and so hard that her body started to tremble at the pain. Hot red sparks of sensation jolted through the tendons in her hands, racing up her arms like her wagon on the back streets of the edges of Goldcliff. Her vision was sparks as she tugged at it, trying to pull the memory through the surface and to safety.

But it wouldn’t budge.

She was forced to let go, watching as the memory of her and the detective known as Hurley meeting for the first time started to slip further and further down, the light refracting from the piece growing dimmer and dimmer until it was gone.

Sloane struggled to remember. She struggled to hold the face of her love in her mind. She grasped at the ends of their last few memories, dipping her hands deep into the murk, probing for anything else she could find.

\-----

“See this?” Lucas lifted the end of the cord, shaking his hand up and down, making the adapter flop around.

Hurley stared, already well aware that what he had in his hands was a connecter, something that many of the people in the city used to dive into the internet directly.

“I’m going to use this to dive into Sloane’s compromised brain, root around, and… if things go according to plan,” he flashed a weak grin, becoming uneasy under the presence of Hurley, “I will be able to knock the hacker out of control, take over myself, and bring Sloane back,”

Hurley tapped her foot, tilting her head to the side, watching as he looked from her, then away, and then back at her again.

“So you’ll be in control of Sloane,” she murmured, trying to reflect on the consequences of having another person take control of Sloane while she was prone as such, how it might make her feel.

Sloane was the quintessential free bird, always rooting about by herself, taking care of things without a lick of help. She had gotten into degrees of trouble because of such mindset, Hurley mused. From simple troubles to much greater ones, Sloane was persistent on being free. She couldn’t stand being tied down.

Even with Hurley, their relationship was fast and passionate. Sloane would disappear from time to time, only to come back to sweep Hurley off her feet and confess her undying love for her, like the absence had only made her grow fonder.

Hurley couldn’t say she minded because she felt very close to how Sloane did. She had her detective work to do but she knew at the end of the day, at the end of the week, whatever it may be, her and Sloane would be together.

Until they weren’t.

Miller shifted around before turning, going over to his equipment and started to set things up.

“How are you going to prevent yourself from being hacked yourself?” Hurley mentioned. The last thing she wanted was two people under her care that she wasn’t able to help.

Lucas shook his head, “I have failsafes in place. If anyone tries to breach my barriers,” he tapped the side of his head with a minor grin, glasses reflecting back the blue of the screens that illuminated the room, “They’ll be blown back and probably short circuit,”

Hurley hummed, looking from Miller over towards her girlfriend. She fidgeted, stepping over towards the lounge chair that Sloane was upon. She loomed, something that was a rarity for the halfling, before gently pressing her thumb against the curved edge of Sloane’s cheek. She stroked the spot, feeling the softness of skin that wasn’t really skin, before looking over her shoulder at Miller.

He looked away from her with a jerk of his head, obviously staring, before he mumbled something under his breath and stepped over to join her. He finished setting his equipment up, quiet.

\------

Slowly, Sloane lifted her head. There was a trickle, a small stream of information flowing through the murk. She instinctively reached, dipping her hands into the pond and grasping at the information before her.

Her hands were coiled with the information as it swam towards her, wrapping around her fingers and wrists. It buried itself deep inside of her palms, shooting through her veins and into her brain.

Thrown back, Sloane struggled to process what was flashing before her eyes. Images of a giant force, four towering judges, a city of androids. She could see a man sinking into the depths, an absolute and dominating need for consumption, and a light that could never be reached.

She felt things shifting around her, the world that made up her inner mind, the murky abyss and the darkness that surrounded her, suddenly that all started to fade.

Sloane struggled as the darkness consumed her. Her heart was racing. Her hands; grasping at everything and anything.

She stopped breathing.

Her vision started to close in.

Then, a small pinhole of light.

\-----

She inhaled sharply, eyes flying open.

“Sloane!” Hurley bellowed, gripping her shoulders tightly. She looked down at her with wide eyes, lower lip quivering.

Sloane sat up with a jolt, looking around. She instinctively held onto Hurley, feeling a strange tingling in her brain as she slowly started to remember.

Memories flowed back into her, filling her like a glass; fuller and fuller until it was filled all the way to the top.

Her eyes flickered across Hurley’s face as she remembered the first time they met down near Tech Noir, the first race they had together out the outskirts of Goldcliff, the way Hurley sounded when she laughed.

But now Hurley was crying and she hated to admit that this wasn’t the first time she had caused Hurley to break into tears.

She wrapped her arms around Sloane, drawing her so close.

Sloane responded by pulling her arms around her in return, memories still settling into place. She glanced at the man lying down besides them, his face twisted in determination but his eyes closed.

She noticed the cord attaching him to her and things started to click into place.

Hurley pulled back to kiss her and she met her halfway.

“I’m so glad you’re back,” Hurley said, her breathing shaky.

“Glad to be back,” Sloane smiled.

She basked in Hurley’s warmth, leaning back into her.

Thinking back to it, Sloane wondered what that ribbon of information was and who was trying to take all of her memories from her. She would find out sooner than later, Hurley was a damn fine detective after all, but for now she couldn’t help but feel a little disturbed to not have the answers.

But she would live. She had Hurley here with her, in her arms, and all her memories back into place.

The man besides them woke, watching them with a tense look.

Hurley ran a hand over her head, fingers gliding over her seams.

They kissed again.

**Author's Note:**

> This is a small writing exercise to try and get myself to get into gear for a larger fic ive been planning. If you like the concept and wanna see more, let me know! Other feedback is really appreciated too, thanks!


End file.
